Kyrgyzstan
There was no single Silk Road - rather, there were a number
of different routes used by ancient traders. Some of the
main ones certainly ran through Kyrgyzstan, both in the
North (coming over the mountains from China and down from
what is now Kazakhstan past lake Issyk Kul then down the
Chui river), but another variant ran over the Torugart
Pass (Tuergate, Torugart) in Central Kyrgyzstan then through
Naryn and down the Chui river, while a third (southern)
variant came over the Irkeshtam Pass in the South (then
through the city of Osh, which celebrates its 3000th,
year in the year 2000). A spur of the southern route ran
through the middle of the country to joint with the middle
route over Torugart Pass. Once in Kyrgyzstan, one route
ran down the Chui river and then over the present day
pass to Kazakhstan (which is today called “Zhibek Zholu”
or Silk Road) and in the South ran from Osh through Uzbekistan
and then westwards. No country in central Asia other perhaps
than China has a better claim to represent the best of
the Silk Routes.

These ancient trading routes which operated 2000 and more
years ago, reaching peak use in the second century AD,
are called “”Silk” because they transported generally
high value non-bulky commodities such as spices, jewellery,
and silk, from East (from China) to West (to Rome) and
back again. The trade was actively promoted by many of
the intermediate kingdoms, such as the Parthians and Persian,
which benefitted from tolls and in return helped to maintain
and protect the routes. Cities such as Ectabana, Merv,
Palmyra, Petra, and Alexandria flourished on the trade.
As one writer says “in the end, the horse and the Bactrian
camel were the means by which the central Asian steppes
were opened up as a great commercial route”. We should
not, however, imagine a trader starting in Eastern China
and making his way to Rome! Perhaps a few did so and of
course we know that a few (such as Marco Polo, rather
late on in the show) went all the way in the opposite
direction from Italy to China. But most traders would
travel along a short part of the route, handing on their
goods to the next trader in the next large town, and by
such means goods swapped hands and increased in price
many times before arriving at their ultimate destination.

Some of the Silk Routes through China skirted the Taklamaklan
desert, one of these running to the north and one to the
south of this desert. There was also a more northern route
towards the Altai mountains. The different routes were
used depending partly on climate and also partly on incursions
from local tribes. Certainly one of the southern Taklamakan
routes went through Yokand (Yarkand, Yarche, Schache)
and then through Kashgar (Kashi or Kashi Shi) and these
can easily be visited today from Kyrgyzstan. Some other
routes also probably went down what is now the Karakoram
Highway past lake Karakul and through Taskhkurgan and
then either through the huge and dramatic cleft in the
mountain range where the Mintaka river links China and
Afghanistan or possibly over the 4730 meter Khunjerab
Pass into the Indian subcontinent (into what is today
Pakistan’s Northern Territory). Tashkurgan is thought
by many to be the “Stone Tower” which Pliny wrote about
and today there is visible there a large ruined site (the
“Stone City”) which dominates the lower valley.

The heyday of the Silk Routes was in the period 1800 years
ago, and its use for the transport of rare items between
China and the West tended to decline when sea routes later
opened up or became more popular (having earlier been
bedevilled by piracy). Nevertheless, although the whole
Silk Routes from China to Rome may not have been used
continuously as a transcontinental route, and parts of
it fell from time to time into disuse, other parts remained
open continuously, even if used for more local trading.
The main threat to the routes were the northern barbarians
(Huns, Hsiung-nu and others) who put pressure both on
the Chinese - especially in the Tarim basin area where
to the south the warlike Tibetans were also a threat -
and later, even on Rome itself. But particularly with
more bulky cargoes, the sea routes (for example, through
the Red Sea and then the Mediterranean, or through the
Persian Gulf, and then overland through Persia/Arabia)
proved to be a more economical and reliable route - after
the suppression of piracy - and this led to a decline
in use of the land routes. But because there is not one
road but many routes, and trading never ceased along at
least parts of them, it is impossible to say that the
Silk Road ever ceased to be used.

As for the Kyrgyz (Kirghiz, Khyrghyz) themselves, they
perhaps mainly originated from the northern Altai Mountains.
However, the word “Kyrgyz” (which means something like
“forty tribes”) is one of the oldest in central Asia,
being recorded in written documents as early as the third
millennium BC. A Kyrgyz Khanate stretched from the Yenisei
river to the eastern Tien Shan in the first millennium
AD. By the 6th century, a unification of Turkic tribes
gave rise to the Western Turkic Khanate (there was later
an Eastern version) the capital of which was Suyab situated
in the Chui valley (Bishkek lies in this valley). In the
10th-12th centuries, the Kara-Khanid Khanate (or Kara-Khitai
Empire - “Kitai” in Russian still means “Chinese”) developed
- and one of its main towns was Balasagun, the ruins of
which with its impressive 11th. century “Burana Tower”,
may still be seen today only an hour’s drive from Bishkek
(a field of stone petroglyphs such as those by the hotel
doors – called “bal-bals” can also be seen there.) Balasagun,
who together with the other Kyrgyz philosopher Muhammad
Kashgar is regarded as one of the greatest oriental thinkers
of this period.

From the Altai mountains, the Kyrgyz displaced the Uighurs,
who themselves moved south to the steppes of western China
(later Turkestan) and in turn displaced the local Turkish
peoples. In the 13th century, the Kyrgyz were in turn
conquered and the Kara-Khanid Khanate was destroyed by
the Mongol empire, while in China the Mongols used the
more settled Uighurs as their allies to form the bureaucratic
and administrative class needed to administer the Chinese
territories conquered by Genghis Khan (a fact which led
to Chinese resentment of the Uighurs which persists to
this day). After the death of the Great Khan Mongke, the
Mongol Empire split into different Khanates, and modern
day Kyrgyzia became part of the Chagatai Khanate. Later,
this became the Kokand Khanate, dominated by Uzbeks from
the south, but following an uprising in 1873-1874, the
Kyrgyz were finally brought into the sway of the Russian
Empire following the expansion of the latter in the later
half of the 19th. century. At the site of what is now
Bishkek (in Soviet times Frunze, after the famous general)
the Kokand Khanate built a fortress in 1825, but this
is known to have been built on the site of an older Kyrgyz
fort, called Pishpek. Probably Pishpek was a modest trading
post at the time. (“Pishpek” has the meaning of a large
stirring spoon or plunger used in making cream or cheese).
The city was captured by a joint Russian-Kyrgyz force
in 1862 and was essentially demolished, with a new fortification
being planned by Russian military engineers. In 1878 the
city of Pishpek was designated as a district centre, and
in 1924 it became the administrative and political centre
of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Region, being renamed Frunze
in 1926 after the famous local general whose reward for
great competence was to be assassinated by Stalin (or
rather, by his doctors) - and the city was then renamed
as Bishkek after independence, in 1991. (There is a museum
to General Frunze in central Bishkek inside, which is
his original house, preserved as a kind of shrine).

Bishkek has a population of about 1,000,000. The city
is said to be one of the greenest in central Asia with
the highest number of trees per head of population. It
lies in the Chui river valley, only 30 km from the border
with Kazakhstan (which is marked by the river) and one
hour’s drive or less from the impressive 14,500 feet peaks
of the Kyrgyz Krebet. Its airport is Manas, about 30 minutes
way by car, and it is only 3 hours or so by car from Alma
Aty, the former capital of Kazakhstan (the capital was
fairly recently switched to a more northern city called
Astana).

The present day borders of Kyrgyzia (Kyrgyzstan, Khyrghyzstan,
the Kyrgyz Republic) were drawn up by the new Russian
conquerors and rewritten in part under the Soviet Union
(for example, part of the Ferghana valley near Osh was
ceded by Stalin to the Uzbeks). Even today there remain
some border disputes, particularly in the south where
enclaves of Uzbek land are totally encompassed within
the borders of Kyrgyzstan. Talks are going on to resolve
these.

The Kyrgyz people themselves, formerly nomadic, were -
like others in central Asia - subject to a brutal campaign
of settlement and collectivization under the Soviet Union
in its formative period, which left a large percentage
of the population dead from starvation and disease. However,
it cannot be denied that in later years the Russian presence
led to many benefits in the forms of heavy subsidies enabling
the relative modernisation of the country and its infrastructure.
The country was one of the most favoured holiday destinations
for Soviet citizens, who flocked especially to the many
resorts on Lake Issyk-Kul. Literacy rates are high though
with the withdrawal of subsidies in the post-Soviet period,
the infrastructure (roads, hotels, electricity supply,
telephone system, etc.) is at the end of the 20th, century
crumbling. Stalin moved sizable populations of other minorities
here: these include Koreans, Germans and some Chinese
(though there was already a Chinese population called
Dunghans or Dongans in residence. Many Germans have now
emigrated to Germany leaving some smaller towns practically
empty. About 150,000 Russians have emigrated since 1991.
Kyrgyzstan unfortunately has the reputation of being perhaps
the most corrupt country in the former Soviet Union and
this perhaps reflects a long disdain of official Soviet
practices and a tradition of paying lip service to the
rules while disobeying them in practice. Somebody once
said of Russia that the severity of the legislation was
matched only by the extent to which it was not observed:
Kyrgyzia today has many of the most forward looking laws
in the CIS but unfortunately, because the courts are corrupt
and not independent, the laws do not work very well, if
at all. This is unlikely to affect the traveller apart
from the occasional meeting with a (usually friendly)
policeman who is looking for a small bribe to mind his
own business. But it has a definite effect on business
practices. Many foreigners contrast the relative friendliness
with the extent of bribery and refer to it as “corruption
with a smiling face” which is perhaps close to the truth.

Most of the population now speak Russian at least as a
second language, and many as their first, though there
is growing reluctance to use Russian especially in more
rural areas. In the year 2000 Russian was given the status
of an “official” language in order to appease ethnic Russians
and to try to stem the continuing exodus of Russians to
the Russian Federation. The native Kyrgyz language is
classified as a Turkic language, a fact which follows
from the Turkic expansions - particularly between the
5th, and 8th. - centuries when two great Turkic Empires
(the western and the eastern) occupied much of central
Asia and large parts of modern day China including the
Altai mountains where the Kyrygyz partly originated. Modern
day Kyrgyz is closely related to Uighur (though the latter
uses an Arabic script) and to Kazakh and Turkmen and the
different peoples can speak to one another without much
difficulty. Uzbek is slightly more remote from the Kyrgyz
but still very comprehensible, while the language, which
is closest to modern day Turkish and furthest from Kyrgyz,
is that of Azerbaijan, though with some difficulties Kyrgyz
and Azeris can communicate in a general way using their
own languages. Turkish, however, is now quite remote from
spoken Kyrgyz, though 50% or so of words are recognisably
of common origin. In the south are some Tadjiks and their
language is not related to Turkish at all but is Persian
in origin.

Ethnically, the Kyrgyz tend to resemble somewhat the Mongols
or Chinese, while the Uzbeks and the Uighurs (the latter
live mainly in China) resemble more the people of Turkey.
But there has, of course, been a huge mixing of populations
and you will notice a great difference in facial appearances.
Most of the population is nominally Moslem, but the state
is generally secular in character since the Soviets discouraged
religious belief and the building of mosques and in any
case the Kyrgyz were never strongly religious. The present
government is determined to discourage religious fundamentalism
and the country has escaped the worst of the religious
ferment which has troubled Afghanistan and (in part) Tadjikistan
and which still to some extent causes concern in Uzbekistan.
Nevertheless, about 1500 Kyrgyz per year attend the Haj
in Saudi Arabia. Further, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others
are encouraging the building of mosques and, some allege,
are fomenting religious discord and groups, which are
hostile to the secular government. Although the majority
of people now live in towns or cities, many yurts (felt
tents used widely in the region, including Mongolia) are
still to be seen dotting the countryside and especially
the higher and more remote regions of the country. Around
much-visited spots along the road, they often double as
restaurants.

Kyrgyzstan is in the very middle of the Eurasian continent,
bordering China (east), Kazakhstan (north and west), Uzbekistan
(south west), and Tadjikistan (south west and south).
Its territory is 198.5 thousand square km, about the area
of Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands
put together, or a little less than the UK. The northernmost
part is at the same latitude as Rome, but because it is
landlocked its winters are much colder (and the height
above sea level makes many parts even colder - our guest
house in Naryn has -35 degrees C fairly often in winter)
and its summers are both drier and hotter (45 degrees
C is not unusual and 50 degrees C was recorded in 1998
near Bishkek). 93% of the surface area is over 1500 meters
in height and 41% is over 3000 meters. The greatest natural
feature is the Tien-Shan mountains (in Kyrgyz “Tenir-Too”)
running northeast to southwest. The second most famous
feature is Lake Issyk-Kul (“warm lake”), which is 1,600
meters above sea level and 668 meters deep in places.
This lake contains approximately 1,738 cubic kilometers
of water and has no rivers flowing out of it (it is, therefore,
slightly salty and because of this and perhaps deep volcanic
activity it never freezes. This gives it its name, though
it certainly is not warm.) The lake lies in a basin surrounded
by high mountains. It is not far by road (about 3 hours)
from the second largest lake in Kyrgyzstan, which lies
at 3000 meters - lake Son Kul - a remote but beautiful
wildlife sanctuary. To the north west of the great lake,
directly over the mountains, is Alma Aty and this city
is to be connected to the lake by a high-altitude road
which may open in 2000 and which will greatly shorten
the travel time (otherwise, 5-6 hours). Apart from the
travel time the road gives spectacular views over the
lake and runs through dramatic and beautiful mountain
scenery. The river Naryn runs from north east to south
west joining with the Kara-Darya to form a river which
even in antiquity was called the Syr-Darya and which runs
from Kyrgyzstan out into the Ferghana (Fergana) valley
and on into the Aral Sea (though it is mainly diverted
or exhausted before then). This is the second largest
river in central Asia after the Amu-Darya. It is possible
to visit its source, above the city of Naryn.